My mother would be shocked at my actions this weekend. I ripped a brand-new PS5 Pro from the box, hooked it up, and sat three inches away from the screen for about eight hours straight. This is Sony ’s big mid-cycle refresh, promising 67% more compute cores, 28% faster RAM, and 45% faster rendering - a party line of percentages that have had PS5 owners’ eyebrows raised for weeks.

It has three goals; hit smooth 4K 60fps gameplay, improve ray tracing with more details, and upscale games for better clarity. If those goals align with your own, this is the only PlayStation on the market for you. If you don’t already know that they do, your money is better spent elsewhere.

Like many original 2020 owners, I’ve been waiting to see what a mid-cycle update can offer me. My console is still running just as well as it did on launch day, but the promise of more had my interest piqued in September. The PS5 Pro has sat in pride of place in my living room for a week now, and I’m not convinced I’ll be buying one when it inevitably gets taken off me.

Design I felt a bit old when I opened the PS5 Pro’s box, a little like how my grandparents might have looked at the first mobile phones and recalled their own chunky landlines from back in the day. I knew the Slim made changes to the PS5 ’s overall design, but I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed with even the Pro’s slightly larger form factor. The device looks and feels like a true next-generation piece of tech, so much so th.